Newly acquired goaltender's hot streak fuels team's late season surge

Many players and factors are responsible for the Capitals’ recent run of sustained success, but one of the most prominent is goaltender Cristobal Huet. Obtained from the Montreal Canadiens for a second-round pick in the 2009 Entry Draft on Feb. 26, Huet has won a career-high nine straight starts, the first Caps goaltender to reel off a spree of that length since Pete Peeters won nine in a row from Jan. 28-Mar. 3, 1987.

A native of St. Martin D'Heres, France, Huet did not take the traditional route to the National Hockey League. He started playing the game at an early age and has been hooked ever since.

“We had hockey in my hometown and my dad loved hockey,” says Huet. “We went to the game and we loved it. It was a passion for me and my brother like any Canadian teen. We just loved it.”

Beginning when he was 20 years old in 1995-96, he spent two seasons playing for Grenoble in the French League, very near his hometown. In 1997-98, Huet was named both MVP and goaltender of the year in the French League.

Starting in 1998-99, Huet moved to Lugano in the Swiss National League, where he spent the next four seasons. He earned goaltender of the year honors twice in that circuit, in 1999-00 and 2000-01.

While with Lugano, he began to attract the attention of some NHL scouts. Back in the days when it was commonplace to take a late-round flier on older European players, Huet was a seventh-round (214th overall) choice of the Los Angeles Kings in the 2001 NHL Entry Draft. At the time, Huet was a couple months shy of his 26th birthday.

“Really late,” says Huet, when asked at what point he believed he could play in the NHL. “I moved from France to Switzerland. I didn’t really have a goalie coach before, so I had to fix that a little bit. That one guy told me I should prepare myself to play in the big league. The year after, I was drafted by L.A.

“I had some option of going to college but I stayed in France. It is a very unusual road. I had to climb the French League and then the Swiss League and then start all over again here.”

In those days the Swiss League was dotted with players who had NHL experience, including the likes of Daniel Marois, Chris Tancill, Ken Yaremchuk, Paul DiPietro, Todd Elik and Phillipe Bozon, one of the few French natives to play in the NHL. Bozon and Huet are the only two French born-and-trained players to reach the NHL.

Huet’s team won the Swiss League playoffs in his first season in the league, and his 1.72 goals against average in the playoffs was tops in the circuit. The following season, he led the Swiss League with a 1.59 GAA and eight shutouts. In 2000-01, Huet again led the league with a 1.96 GAA and six shutouts. His performance that season convinced the Kings to spend a pick on him.

“There is some good leagues in Europe,” Huet notes. “I would say it’s good skating teams, especially in Switzerland. Well organized, but not as physical as here. Bigger ice so guys with skills can express themselves. Germany is more like North American style.”

After one more strong season with Lugano, Huet came to North America for the 2002-03 season. He was 27 years old at the time, and he started the season with Manchester in the AHL, playing under Bruce Boudreau, then the head coach of the Monarchs.

“We never expected much out of him in Manchester, quite frankly,” says Boudreau. “Here’s a kid that played in France, not exactly a world hockey power at that time. So he came over and he was our backup goalie to Travis Scott. And every game he just seemed to get better and more calm and better and better. Every game he was in, we were winning.

“You’d phone L.A. and say, ‘Listen, this guy’s a lot better than we thought. You better get down here and look at him a couple of times.’ They did, and they really liked what they saw. And he stayed up there the next year.”

“I was very nervous, I remember that. I think we won the game, 3-1. We played pretty good and I didn’t face that many shots. It was a dream come true, and obviously it was good to start off with the win.”

“The next year he was a little inconsistent. In their minds, they didn’t know if he would be a No. 1. So that’s why they traded him to Montreal for [Mathieu] Garon.”

Nearly three years to the day after they drafted him, the Kings traded Huet and center Radek Bonk to Montreal for goaltender Garon and a third-round choice in the 2004 NHL Entry Draft.

After spending the lockout season of 2004-05 in the German League, Huet debuted with the Habs in 2005-06. That debut was delayed by a knee injury suffered late in training camp. Huet played four games in a rehab assignment for Hamilton of the AHL before donning a Habs sweater for the first time in Dec. 2005. Within two months, the Canadiens had signed him to a two-year contract extension.

Almost as soon as the ink had dried on the paper, Huet went on a roll that helped propel the Habs into the playoffs. It was not unlike his performance with the Capitals this season.

The Habs were a game over .500 at the beginning of February that season. Huet went 15-7-3 with a 1.87 goals against average and a .937 save pct. in starting 25 of Montreal’s last 32 games. The Habs went 10-4 in their last 14 to slide into the seventh spot in the Eastern Conference standings.

Huet authored seven shutouts during that stretch, and allowed three or fewer goals in 22 of those 25 games. He allowed two or fewer in 16 of them.

“There is some similar stuff, obviously,” he says, comparing that season to this one. “I don’t think we had to win 12 out of 13 to get in. But still it was an amazing year with Montreal, the second part of the year. It’s always nice to play hard and get rewarded to be in the playoffs.”

Huet won the Roger Crozier Saving Grace Award for the league’s best save pct. (.929) that year. The following season, he played in his first NHL all-star game.

Montreal missed out on the postseason party in 2007, but their Hamilton affiliate in the AHL did not. With 19-year-old wunderkind netminder Carey Price leading the way, the Hamilton Bulldogs won the 2007 Calder Cup championship. Suddenly, Price was firmly positioned as the Habs’ goaltender of the future; the immediate future. Playing in the final year of his contract extension in 2007-08, Huet was -- just as suddenly -- expendable.

With both Olie Kolzig and Brent Johnson playing well throughout the month of February, it was a surprise to learn that Washington had obtained Huet from the Habs on the morning of the Feb. 26 NHL trade deadline. The relatively low price (a second-rounder in the 2009 draft previously obtained from Anaheim) was a bit surprising, too.

“I thought it was a possibility,” said Huet of being traded, shortly after his arrival in Washington. “They are very high on Carey, and my contract is up.”

Upon arriving in Washington, Huet and Kolzig initially split the netminding chores. Both performed well, and the Capitals began to make inroads in their late-season charge for a playoff berth. After Kolzig was in goal for a 5-0 loss at Chicago on Mar. 19, Huet was between the pipes for Washington’s comeback win in Atlanta on Mar. 21. That was the first of seven straight wins for the Caps – their longest winning streak in more than 15 years – and Huet has been in goal for each of them.

“He’s been pretty good,” understates Boudreau. “Quite honestly, I didn’t know what to expect. For the first eight games here him and Olie were playing pretty well an even amount and they both had the same numbers. And then when [he won] two in a row, and then he just kept getting better and better and better.

“No slight against Olie – because if he has to go in then I don’t feel like we’ve lost a step – but Huet’s been unbelievable, and making the right save at the right time. And for him, I think it’s a good time for him to be doing it as well.”

A pending unrestricted free agent this summer, Huet’s hot streak timing is good. It’s been pretty good from Washington’s standpoint, too.

In his 13 starts as a Capital, Huet is 11-2 with two shutouts, a 1.63 goals against average and a .936 save pct. He has allowed just 10 even-strength goals in those 13 contests.

Including his numbers with Montreal, Huet finished the 2007-08 season with career highs in starts (51) and wins (32). He finished sixth in the league with .920 save pct. Of the five goalies who finished ahead of him, only two (Anaheim’s Jean-Sebastien Giguere and Boston’s Tim Thomas) played more games than Huet’s 52.

Huet is humble when asked about his success.

“We have young guys, an easygoing group of guys,” he says. “We had a target since the trade, and we’ve been on a mission since then. It makes it a lot easier to play and to compete every night.

“We have success, but you can’t do that by yourself. We’ve been playing well and I’m part of that. I think the team is playing so well that it makes it easy on me.”

Huet’s game and demeanor are both quieter than those of Kolzig, but both goaltenders are very competitive. Huet does not have Kolzig’s size, but the 32-year-old has a quick glove hand and is a solid technician. There is economy and little wasted motion in his game, and he rarely leaves juicy rebounds in the slot.

Huet also roams a bit more than Kolzig, and likes to play the puck here and there.

“He’s so calm with the puck that as a player you don’t really panic and that’s really good,” says Caps defenseman Mike Green. “A lot of times when the goalie kind of rushes out there and is looking around and doesn’t know what to do, you kind of panic as a player and don’t know where to go. But with Huet, he is so calm you know he is going to put it to either corner perfect for you.”

Getting used to a new bunch of blueliners in front of him has been one of the biggest adjustments Huet has faced since his arrival in the District.

“That’s definitely the hardest thing I think for a goalie coming up with a new team,” he says, when asked about communicating with his defensemen. “There is still room for improvement, I think. It comes down to basics. It’s been working out pretty good.”

“I think with Huey it’s been pretty easy,” says blueliner John Erskine. “He’s an amazing goalie and everyone has confidence with him. Sometimes it’s hard when you get goalies who like to play the puck all the time. He plays kind of the same style as Olie and Johnny, so it’s pretty easy.

“I played with [Marty] Turco [in Dallas] and I played with [Rick] DiPietro [with the Islanders]. When I played with them we don’t even go back. You just peel off to the corner and they dish it off to you. If I see [Huet] get the puck, I’ll dish off to the corner. He likes to do that. But he doesn’t overplay the puck so it’s easy.

Growing up in France, Huet was able to follow the NHL from afar as a boy, and he saw his first live NHL game as a 13-year-old playing in a peewee tournament in Quebec.

“I would say a guy like Patrick Roy whose style was an inspiration for a lot of goalies. [Dominik] Hasek when he was flopping around and saving everything he could was fun to watch, too. I think every team in the NHL was a dream for every kid, and for me, too.”

For the last few years, a playoff berth has seemed like a dream for the Caps and their fans. Behind Huet’s netminding, Washington won 11 of its last 12 games to claim its first division title in seven years.

“I think when he first came here and then playing in front of him and the way he was you could kind of tell we had something special here,” says Green. “[Am I] surprised that he has won [so often]? Not really. We’ve been playing desperation hockey here and he’s been a big part of our success.”

Huet returns to humility when asked to explain that success.

“I think right now I’m a little lucky,” he says. “Everything I do, I try to play the percentage most of the time but it seems like the other team is not picking corners, or I make one of those saves sometimes. The team is giving us some big goals, so everything is going well for us. But we’ve definitely worked for that, and it’s fun when we do it.”

“He’s just one of those goalies who is getting better with age and experience,” says Boudreau. “I think he is probably in the prime of his goaltending career right now.

In his one previous playoff series with the Habs, Huet went 2-4 as Montreal bowed out in the first round to eventual Cup champion Carolina two springs ago. He posted a solid 2.33 goals against average and a .929 save pct. during that series.

On Friday Huet will begin his second NHL playoff series in the same building where he made his first NHL start just over five years ago. The atmosphere figures to be a bit different than it was for that late season game with Los Angeles.

“I always liked to play here,” he says with a smile. “It’s good to play in front of a crowd [that’s] in red and going crazy.”

Mike Vogel | WashingtonCaps.com Senior Writer